Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Audiobook Review for The Overtime Kiss by Lauren Blakely

 

Love and Hockey #5

The Overtime Kiss by Lauren Blakely

Published:  May 13, 2025 by Lauren Blakely Book

Taken from Goodreads:  Just what every bride dreams of—running straight from her cheating fiancĂ© into the arms of a hot hockey star… and then getting hired as his kids’ nanny.

Tyler Falcon is protective, flirtatious…and frustratingly responsible. We almost did something reckless when he found me alone in my wedding dress, and I blurted out all the things I’d never truly experienced.

Now, the sexy single dad is saving me again with a job I desperately need—and a promise to never mention The Night of 1001 Confessions.

I live in his house. Take care of his kids. Pretend I don’t notice his heated gaze lingering on me after they fall asleep.

Until one night, the tension snaps.

Now we have a deal. Five lessons in seduction. No strings attached.

But he’s not just good in bed. He spoils me with thoughtful gifts and supports my dreams. For the first time, I feel like I belong.

Except…this was never meant to last. I’m his employee. He has kids to protect. And neither of us can afford to make a mistake.

The more nights we spend tangled up together though, the harder it is to pretend it’s just physical. Because I’m not only falling for my boss—I’m falling for the man whose kids have stolen my heart.

Tropes: single dad/nanny, runaway bride, forced proximity, spicy lessons, she's his daughter's skating coach, confession of all secrets, love notes, found family

My Thoughts:  I listened to this book and loved it all.  Hockey romance is my jam right now.  I cannot read/listen to them quick enough.  The narrators, Brooke Bloomingdale and Teddy Hamilton, are perfect.  The dual narrators bring the characters to life and the story became real. 

The Overtime Kiss is an amazing, steamy hockey romance book.  Listening to the book took 12 hours and I could not stop listening.   Usually I just listen at work, but with this book I kept finding a quiet corner to listen to one more chapter.  I was invested in Sabrina and Tylers relationship.  

I recommend reading and listening to The Overtime Kiss and highly recommend it to any romance reader who loves a steamy hockey book.

Thank you to the author for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. 

Add to your MUST-LISTEN list on Goodreads

Purchase your own copy on Amazon


Meet the Author (takenfrom her website): A #1 New York Times Bestselling, #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling, and #1 Audible Bestselling author, Lauren Blakely is known for her contemporary romance style that’s sexy, feel-good and witty. Her books have been featured in US Weekly and People. Lauren likes dogs, cake and show tunes and she is the vegetarian at your dinner party.

To receive an email when Lauren releases a new book, sign up for her newsletter by clicking here!

Book Review for The Trouble with Soulmates by Elke Feuer

 

The Trouble with Soulmates by Elke Feuer

Published: June 18, 2025 by Elke Feuer LLC

Taken from Goodreads:  She dreamed of him before they ever met. Now fate is giving them a second chance.

Rachel Miller has always dreamed of the future—literally. Her visions have been both a gift and a burden, leading her to guard her heart. But when the new owner of her firm walks in, looking exactly like the man from her dreams, she knows destiny has caught up with her.

Michael Doherty never expected to find love in the Cayman Islands, but from the moment he meets Rachel, their connection feels fated. When she turns down his offer of a life together in Ireland, he leaves heartbroken.

Fate isn’t finished with them yet. Reunited months later, they get a second chance at the love they were always meant to find—but only if they’re brave enough to fight for it.

For fans of moderately steamy romance with spiritual depth, emotional journeys, and a touch of the divine.

My Thoughts:  The Trouble with Soulmates is book full of emotions.   The biggest emotion in this book is love.  Rachel falls in love in her dreams with the man who is now her boss.   The feelings from her dream are so real that there is a struggle not to act on them when she meets Micheal, the boss.   I love that their story is unique. 

This book had so much going on that I never wanted to put it down.   I was invested in the various relationships within the story.  The acceptance of Rachel’s uniqueness became very important to me.  The story had me hoping that both families would figure out how to accept each other and support each other.  

I adored this book.  I cannot wait to discuss it with my friends.   Elke Fleuer is a must-read author.   I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an emotion, family drama, romance story.

Thank you to the author for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

Add to your MUST-READ list on Goodreads

Purchase your own copy on Amazon

 

Meet the Author (taken fromher website):  As a kid, I devoured Nancy Drew mysteries before graduating to historical romances in my teens.

There was never a time in my life I didn’t want to write, and why I got a typewriter for my ninth birthday.

I planned to write historical and contemporary romances, but fate had other plans when an old story I choose for an online writing class turned into a mystery and my first published book, FOR THE LOVE OF JAZZ.

Soon after, dead bodies and serial killers starting showing up in my stories and I was dragged kicking and screaming into the romantic suspense genre. I was hooked!

Book Review for Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman

 

Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman

Published: June 17, 2025 by William Morrow

Genre:  Cozy Mystery

Taken from Goodreads: Highly acclaimed New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman returns with an irresistible mystery featuring Muriel Blossom, a former private investigator and middle-aged widow whose vacation on a Parisian river cruise turns into a deadly international mystery…that only she can solve. 

Mrs. Blossom is not the kind of woman to play the lottery. She is practical, a devoted grandmother, and has a knack for blending into the background, which was an asset during her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan. But when Mrs. Blossom finds a winning ticket in a parking lot, everything changes...including Mrs. Blossom. She is determined to see the world that sometimes feels as if it’s passing her by.

But when Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who’s sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed.

She also didn’t expect Allan to be found, dead, twenty-four hours later in Paris, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in.

Now Mrs. Blossom doesn’t know who to trust on board the ship, especially when a new, mystifying man, Danny, keeps popping up around every corner, always present when things go awry. He claims that Allan was involved in the transport of a stolen, precious piece of art, and he’s convinced that Mrs. Blossom knows more than she lets on, regarding both the artifact and Allan’s murder.

Mrs. Blossom’s questions only increase as the cruise sails down the Seine. Why does it feel like she is being followed? Who was Allan, and why was he killed? Most alarmingly, why do these mysterious men keep flirting with her?

What follows is a charming one-of-a-kind mystery from one of Time magazine’s “essential crime writers of the last 100 years.” The perfect combination of cozy and thrilling, this novel and the delightful Mrs. Blossom are sure to be unforgettable.

My Thoughts:  A cozy mystery is the perfect description for this book.   Mrs. Blossom (which is how she is referred to throughout the book) wins the lottery and plans a vacation.  On this vacation she meets numerous men who all flirt with her and/or end of dead.   What is going on?   

Murder Takes a Vacation is a quick and easy book to read.   The story moved along quickly with the various characters being quirky and fun.   The various locations in Europe were fun, as someone who has never been I could experience a firsthand look through Mrs. Blossom’s tours and adventures.  

This book is perfect for someone looking for an easy to follow who-dun-it story.   The ending is unexpected and perfect.   

Thank you William Morrow for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.


Add to your MUST-READ list on Goodreads

Purchase your own copy on Amazon

Meet the Author (taken from her website):  Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2025. Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association.

Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light.

Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a Sun editorial writer who retired in 1995 but continues to freelance for several newspapers, and Madeline Mabry Lippman, a former Baltimore City school librarian. Her sister, Susan, is a local bookseller.

 

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Release Blitz for Only Ever You by Amy Cole

 



Only Ever You by Amy Cole is now live!



Once a Marine, always a Marine.

Luke Stratton has avoided his feelings for Hazel Burke most of his adult life, protecting and supporting her from afar. As the leader of an elite team of Marine Raiders, he knew that keeping Hazel safe meant staying away. Luke kept his focus on his missions until he was forced to retire after an operation went devastatingly wrong.

Sometimes our darkest fears prevent us from living a whole life. Sometimes they come true.

When Hazel’s sister’s life is threatened, Luke is her first and only call. Little did she know, that call would spark old emotions, ignite new desires, and pull her into a perilous international plot. Luke may have left the Marines, but he didn’t give up his life of danger and intrigue. When threats lurk behind every door, Luke and Hazel will have to decide whether love is greater than fear.

Only Ever You is an adult romantic suspense for fans of strong women, swoony heroes, and the mysteries that bring them together. Only Ever You is part of Titan Group series, a collection of interconnected standalones that each feature an HEA.




  Download today!

Amazon: https://bit.ly/4lNnV40     


Goodreads: https://bit.ly/44FsFlQ



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Meet Amy Cole



Hi friends! I'm Amy. I'm an 80's baby who picked up my first romance book putzing around an antique store when I was 11 and I've been reading them ever since. Behind every romance writer lurks a devout reader...and that's me.

I married my high school sweetheart after dating for 10 years. Clearly, he's slow on decision making...yet it's working out so there's that redeeming factor. We have two sons, teenagers now, who know everything, just ask them. We also have two black labs, and are still heartbroken over losing our cat. We live back in the Midwest, and in the middle of our hometowns so that we can raise our kids around our families. We live where we swore we'd never move back to and regret nothing about breaking that vow.

I'm a small-town girl who was fortunate enough to travel domestically and internationally for years for work (and for fun). I love to be outside, and give me a campfire at the lake, a ski run down the face of a mountain or a beach sunset any day. I love them all. Equally, please ask me where to eat or what to do in cities across the U.S. and France and I will immediately produce a 10-page itinerary. I love food and I love people watching. There really is a story behind everyone, and the journalism kid in me wants to learn them all. Don't worry, I'll make up some details to add an element of romance or mystery to every story.

I love my family, my friends, dogs, books, love stories, traveling, Murder She Wrote re-runs, sports, history, trivia and food. I'm kind of a smart ass, which I like to say is better than a dumb ass. You want me on your trivia team and if you read my books, I'll happily be your friend forever, just like a lab if you give them one treat as a puppy.

 

Connect with Amy

Website | www.amycolebooks.com   

Amazon | https://bit.ly/3En1cL0 

Goodreads | https://bit.ly/3EfR4DX   

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562893197128      

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/AmyColeBooks     

Pinterest https://pin.it/6cLlJfqr4     

Book Review for The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel

 

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel

Published:  June 17, 2025 by Gallery Books

Genre:  Historical Fiction, World War II

Taken from Goodreads:  Kristin Harmel, the New York Timesbestselling author who “is the best there is at sweeping historical drama” (Kelly Harms, author ofThe Seven Day Switch), returns with an electrifying new novel about two jewel thieves, a priceless bracelet that disappears in 1940s Paris, and a quest for answers in a decades-old murder.


Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.

 

My Thoughts:  The dual timelines of WWII and current time, where the main character is around 90 years old, share a tale of theft and Nazis.  Colette is taught to steal from only bad people at a young age in order to assist those who are in need.  This is a skill that she continues as she ages, continuing to support those that were wronged. When a bracelet stolen during the war resurfaces, she must find out where it has been for all these years. 

I enjoyed every single page of The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau.   The history was told in words true to the time with the characters living a life of strength and fear of the Nazis.  The present time had Colette still being strong but also needing to know the truth of what happened to her sister. The dual timelines melded together, shaping the present time by what had happened in the past.  

Thank you Gallery Books for a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

 

Add to your MUST-READ list on Goodreads

 Purchase your own copy on Amazon

 

Meet the Author (taken from her website):  Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author of The Forest of Vanishing StarsThe Book of Lost Names, The Winemaker’s Wife, and a dozen other novels that have been translated into more than 30 languages and are sold all over the world. Many of her novels have been optioned for film and television. The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau is coming this June.

Kristin has been writing professionally since the age of 16, when she began her career as a sportswriter, covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey for a local magazine in Tampa Bay, Florida. In addition to a long magazine writing career, primarily writing and reporting for PEOPLE magazine (as well as articles published in numerous other magazines, including American Baby, Men’s HealthWoman’s Day, and more), Kristin was also a frequent contributor to the national television morning show The Daily Buzz. Her first novel was published in February 2006.

Kristin was born just outside Boston, Massachusetts and spent her childhood there, as well as in Worthington, Ohio, and St. Petersburg, Florida. After graduating with a degree in journalism (with a minor in Spanish) from the University of Florida, she spent time living in Paris and Los Angeles and now lives in Orlando, with her husband and son. A breast cancer survivor, she is also the co-founder and co-host of the popular weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction.

Monday, June 16, 2025

Release Blitz for At the Edge of Surrender by A.L. Jackson

 





At the Edge of Surrender by A.L. Jackson is now live! 


A surprise single dad, small town romantic suspense…


I’m the last guy on the planet who should be a dad. My life is chaos. My sins written dark and deep.

So, imagine my surprise when my doorbell rings and I open it to find the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen standing on the other side.

And she’s holding the hand of a little girl who looks just like me.


Emery tells me her sister, the child’s mother, is dead.

I feel like dirt since she’s a woman I can hardly remember, and it’s no wonder Emery doesn’t trust that I’m worthy of caring for her niece.

But I can’t turn my back, and I insist on raising Maci.

So, we strike a deal—she’ll stay with me for one month to ensure the little girl is safe.


Emery tries to hate me for who I am, but neither of us can resist the attraction that blazes between us.

One brush of her hand, and she has me on my knees.

One kiss, and I’m falling fast.

Soon, we find ourselves tangled in my sheets.


But when it’s discovered her sister’s death wasn’t accidental, the secret life I’ve been living collides with the past Emery has tried to keep hidden.

And when the fiends come back to finish the job they started, I’m in a race against time to save the two people who I’ve come to love most…


  Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited


Amazon: https://geni.us/ATEOSAmznOP      


Also available in audio!


Listen today: https://geni.us/ATEOSAudioOP


Enter the release day giveaway!


https://geni.us/ATEOSRlsGvwy


Goodreads: https://geni.us/ATEOSGoodreads 


Tropes:

đź–¤Surprise Single Dad

🌹Morally Gray Hero⁠

đź–¤ Hate to Love

🌹Forbidden⁠

đź–¤Roommates to Lovers

🌹Touch Her and ☠️⁠

đź–¤Band of Brothers

🌹Small Town ⁠

đź–¤Secret Society ⁠



Meet A.L. Jackson 



A.L. Jackson is the New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance. She writes emotional, sexy, heart-filled stories about boys who usually like to be a little bit bad.


If she's not writing, you can find her hanging out by the pool with her family, sipping cocktails with her friends, or of course with her nose buried in a book.

 

Connect with A.L. Jackson


Website: www.aljacksonauthor.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5784542.A_L_Jackson

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/A-L-Jackson/e/B007RK7ZOU/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/aljacksonauthor

Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/aljacksonreaderhangout

Instagram: www.instagram.com/aljacksonauthor

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@aljackson_

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/a-l-jackson

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/aljacksonauthor

Book Tour for The Bridge by Alan Ramias

 Some novels linger long after the last page has been turned, and The Bridge is one of those rare books that continues to echo in the mind and heart.



Synopsis:

A War That Won’t Let Go. A Memory That Can’t Be Buried. A Story That Refuses to Fade.

Alan Ramias’s novel immerses readers in the tense, humid world of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, where soldiers navigate a fragile balance between danger, camaraderie, and survival. Blending gritty dialogue, poetic lyricism, and documentary realism, The Bridge explores the dissonance between war’s chaos and its aftermath. It captures not only the fear and bravado of battle but also the weight of returning home—when silence becomes a battlefield of its own, and guilt and memory linger like unhealed wounds. Ramias invites readers into a world where stories are fragmented, truth is elusive, and the need to be heard is urgent and undeniable.


Amazon: https://bit.ly/4kFfw0T


Author Bio:
Alan Ramias’s unique voice emerges from a life shaped by contrasts: a soldier documenting wartime truths and a business strategist reshaping how organizations perform. His early career as an Army reporter in Vietnam captured voices from the front lines, while his later work in corporate consulting—with companies like Motorola, Shell, and HP—focused on systems, learning, and resilience. As co-author of key texts on organizational performance and a mentor to global teams, Ramias has long been driven by a deep curiosity about how humans adapt and endure. Now, with 
The Bridge, he channels that insight into a novel that resonates with raw emotional truth.